mikedsjr
14 October 2003, 06:32 PM
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
By VICTORIA LOE HICKS / The Dallas Morning News
Some courtships take longer than others.
The one that will be consummated Monday with the public opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center spanned the better part of two decades.
Like the courtship practices of European royal houses, the wooing of art collectors of Raymond Nasher's stature is an elaborate, highly stylized diplomatic rite.
It requires patience, a keen eye and a cool head – not unlike the qualities required of a person who makes good in the real estate business, which Mr. Nasher emphatically did.
"Ray is a very, very, very, very experienced developer," said Jay Gates, former director of the Dallas Museum of Art.
Over the years, the likes of New York's Guggenheim Museum and Washington's National Gallery of Art – in addition to the DMA – queued up to show Mr. Nasher's collection, print handsome catalogs of the works, and appoint him to their boards.
So virtually everyone was stunned when he announced in 1997 that he would personally finance creation of a center in downtown Dallas to be the collection's permanent home.
Although the Dallas museum will not own the works – valued at $400 million – the collection will live next door. In essence, the museum gained the advantages of a permanent liaison without the burdens of care and upkeep.
The center, estimated to cost upwards of $70 million, will include indoor and outdoor galleries, plus facilities for scholarship and conservation.
"It was beyond my wildest dreams," said Deedie Rose, who as president of the museum's board in 1997 was among those anxiously awaiting Mr. Nasher's response to the city's offer to raise $15.6 million to build a sculpture garden.
Until the day she was summoned to meet with Mr. Nasher and his daughter Nancy in Mr. Gates' office, Ms. Rose said, "I lived in constant trepidation."
By that point, some onlookers had begun to suspect that Mr. Nasher enjoyed the delights of courtship too much to abandon them for the responsibilities of marriage.
Alpha and omega
The dance that ended in Dallas also began in Dallas.
In 1987, the DMA organized an exhibit of works from the collection of Mr. Nasher and his wife, Patsy. The museum also arranged for the works to go on tour to the National Gallery and then to venues in Madrid, Florence and Tel Aviv.
The tour brought instant notice and acclaim.
"There are rumors that several museums would love to be the eventual home of the collection," Architectural Digest reported.
And even Dallas partisans were forced to admit that the Nasher pieces looked better than good in the I.M. Pei-designed East Building of the National Gallery. Situated on a direct line between the White House and the Capitol, the gallery draws millions of visitors a year.
"It was very, very exciting," Mr. Nasher said.
Before you can say "carpetbagger," J. Carter Brown, the high-wattage director of the National Gallery, began beating a path to Dallas. At one point, he showed Mr. Nasher a model for a new sculpture garden on the National Mall.
Mr. Brown was diligently working to expand his institution's holdings in 20th-century art, never one of its strong suits. The Nasher collection – acknowledged as the most authoritative survey of modern sculpture in private hands – would have moved the ball far downfield.
"Carter Brown became very interested in putting our collection at the National Gallery," Mr. Nasher said. "We had many, many conversations."
Meanwhile, the Nashers developed ties to London's Tate Gallery through sculptor Henry Moore, whose work they collected with fervor. And they established an enduring friendship with Swiss gallery owners Ernst and Hildy Beyeler, who had embarked on their own serious collecting career. Through the Beyelers, the Nashers met international art stars such as Miro, Chagall and Dubuffet.
Pieces are sold
Patsy Nasher died in 1988. Three years later, Mr. Nasher did something the couple had not done since they began collecting major sculptural works in the early 1960s: He sold four of the choicest pieces to the Hall Foundation of Kansas City, Mo., which loaned them permanently to that city's art museum.
That set off a fresh round of jitters in Dallas, which only intensified as an even more formidable competitor took center stage. Thomas Krens, the director who has spread the Guggenheim's modern art franchise across the globe, swept Mr. Nasher into its heady orbit.
Mr. Krens invited Mr. Nasher to help design an expanded sculpture garden at the museum's Venice outpost – renamed for the Nashers – and to exhibit works there. The Guggenheim also appointed Mr. Nasher to the building committee for its Frank Gehry-designed museum in Bilbao, Spain, which became the overnight sensation of the art world.
In contrast to the National Gallery, the Guggenheim is pre-eminently a repository for modern art, although its holdings lean more to painting than sculpture. It had the fit and it had the international reach.
"Tom Krens was very, very interested," Mr. Nasher said. "We had to think about it."
In 1996, the Guggenheim and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco organized a major exhibit of works from the Nasher collection, which traveled first to San Francisco and then to New York. Instrumental in that effort were former DMA officials Harry Parker and Steven Nash, both longtime friends and advisers to Mr. Nasher who had landed in San Francisco.
The Guggenheim even unshuttered the skylights in its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum – usually shrouded to protect the paintings – and Mr. Nasher basked in the light, which was matched by the glowing critical response.
Mr. Krens was in Europe last week and unavailable for comment. Anthony Calnek, the museum's deputy director for communications, said the Guggenheim never expected to receive a bequest as a result of the show.
The high-stakes chess games between major museums and major collectors are "subtle matters," he said. "The '97 show was an end unto itself for a museum like ours."
Dallas steps up to it
At that point, though, many observers might have bet on the Guggenheim.
However, they probably wouldn't have known about the hush-hush but intense campaign being waged in Dallas.
At the center of that campaign were not just Ms. Rose, Mr. Gates and DMA board member and longtime Nasher family friend Jeremy Halbreich, but City Manager John Ware, Assistant City Manager Mary Suhm and Mayor Ron Kirk.
They worked deliberately but with a sense of urgency.
"We were running scared or working scared, which is a smart way to work," Mr. Halbreich said.
Within a month of being named city manager in 1993, Mr. Ware paid a visit to Mr. Nasher. In that first meeting, which took place at Mr. Nasher's office, he didn't broach the subject of the collection, Mr. Ware said: "I just wanted to get to know him."
Their second meeting took place over Sunday brunch at Mr. Nasher's house. After the meal, they toured the house and garden, which were specifically designed to showcase the art.
"As we walked, I would identify each piece and tell him the artist," Mr. Ware said. "I think that might have been the linchpin of our relationship."
Mr. Nasher would have liked to leave the art in place, converting the house and garden into a museum. The first task for Mr. Ware and other Dallas officials was to persuade him, as gently as possible, that the residential setting made that impossible.
When Mr. Kirk was elected in 1995, Mr. Ware wasted no time in impressing upon him the importance of landing the Nasher collection. Unbeknownst to the City Council, they began calculating how much money the city could reasonably promise to raise to build a sculpture garden.
In concert with the museum's representatives, they also began discussing with Mr. Nasher the host of issues such a proposal entails. They talked sites, they talked architects, they talked tax implications, they talked maintenance – and they talked and talked and talked parking.
What they never discussed was the possibility that Mr. Nasher might build and pay for the center himself, rather than donating the collection to the DMA. That notion, Ms. Rose said, would have run counter to everything Mr. Nasher had been hearing for years from his bevy of suitors.
"Throughout the courtship process he heard: 'Here's what I want to do for you, if you'll give us part of your collection,' " she said.
Build-it-yourself route
The Beyelers, by contrast, had chosen the build-it-yourself route. In 1997, they opened the Beyeler Foundation Museum near Basel, Switzerland, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, whom Mr. Nasher met at the Beyeler's opening and later hired.
With the cream of the Nasher collection already in San Francisco and headed to New York, Dallas made its formal pitch.
"We had colored drawings. We made a big presentation," Ms. Rose said.
There were only two things wrong with it:
The $15.6 million, though a respectable sum, would build only a garden, not the center for scholarship and conservation that Mr. Nasher envisioned.
In common with every other museum's bid, it would mean his giving up ownership – and control – of the collection.
"It was very hard for Ray to think about turning it over to anybody else," Mr. Halbreich said.
Mr. Nasher also appeared dismayed, Ms. Rose said, by the prospect of "design by committee."
As a veteran of several Dallas projects, including NorthPark mall, Mr. Nasher knew the ways of City Hall. He had only recently won a decades-long fight over the rezoning of the Caruth homestead across from NorthPark (a victory some attributed to the council's eagerness to snag the collection).
To compound Mr. Nasher's doubts, Mr. Ware cautioned him against relying on the city to maintain the art.
"I said, 'Ray, that's not a good idea.' " Mr. Ware said. " 'If, in the next budget year, we're having budget problems, maintenance is one of the first things I'll look to cut.' "
Over and against those drawbacks was the city's ability to put together the land.
And then there was Dallas' ace in the hole: hometown pride.
"I just begged," Mr. Kirk said. "I pleaded. I knew that if we got into a bidding war, the city was not going to win. It was just a flagrant appeal to Ray's ego and sense of civic pride – which I do pretty good at."
Whatever his feelings, for once Mr. Nasher couldn't deliberate at his leisure. The city gave him a deadline. If he did not accept the deal by a certain date, the offer would be withdrawn.
About that time, the New York Times wrote a story describing the competition for the collection. In it, Mr. Nasher came off as coy – a portrayal that seemed, to some friends, to distress him.
Several observers suspect that it was Nancy Nasher who found the solution, suggesting to her father that he retain ownership of the art and fund the project himself through the Nasher Foundation.
"I just think he realized that was best to serve the art," Ms. Rose said. "It was the right thing."
By VICTORIA LOE HICKS / The Dallas Morning News
Some courtships take longer than others.
The one that will be consummated Monday with the public opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center spanned the better part of two decades.
Like the courtship practices of European royal houses, the wooing of art collectors of Raymond Nasher's stature is an elaborate, highly stylized diplomatic rite.
It requires patience, a keen eye and a cool head – not unlike the qualities required of a person who makes good in the real estate business, which Mr. Nasher emphatically did.
"Ray is a very, very, very, very experienced developer," said Jay Gates, former director of the Dallas Museum of Art.
Over the years, the likes of New York's Guggenheim Museum and Washington's National Gallery of Art – in addition to the DMA – queued up to show Mr. Nasher's collection, print handsome catalogs of the works, and appoint him to their boards.
So virtually everyone was stunned when he announced in 1997 that he would personally finance creation of a center in downtown Dallas to be the collection's permanent home.
Although the Dallas museum will not own the works – valued at $400 million – the collection will live next door. In essence, the museum gained the advantages of a permanent liaison without the burdens of care and upkeep.
The center, estimated to cost upwards of $70 million, will include indoor and outdoor galleries, plus facilities for scholarship and conservation.
"It was beyond my wildest dreams," said Deedie Rose, who as president of the museum's board in 1997 was among those anxiously awaiting Mr. Nasher's response to the city's offer to raise $15.6 million to build a sculpture garden.
Until the day she was summoned to meet with Mr. Nasher and his daughter Nancy in Mr. Gates' office, Ms. Rose said, "I lived in constant trepidation."
By that point, some onlookers had begun to suspect that Mr. Nasher enjoyed the delights of courtship too much to abandon them for the responsibilities of marriage.
Alpha and omega
The dance that ended in Dallas also began in Dallas.
In 1987, the DMA organized an exhibit of works from the collection of Mr. Nasher and his wife, Patsy. The museum also arranged for the works to go on tour to the National Gallery and then to venues in Madrid, Florence and Tel Aviv.
The tour brought instant notice and acclaim.
"There are rumors that several museums would love to be the eventual home of the collection," Architectural Digest reported.
And even Dallas partisans were forced to admit that the Nasher pieces looked better than good in the I.M. Pei-designed East Building of the National Gallery. Situated on a direct line between the White House and the Capitol, the gallery draws millions of visitors a year.
"It was very, very exciting," Mr. Nasher said.
Before you can say "carpetbagger," J. Carter Brown, the high-wattage director of the National Gallery, began beating a path to Dallas. At one point, he showed Mr. Nasher a model for a new sculpture garden on the National Mall.
Mr. Brown was diligently working to expand his institution's holdings in 20th-century art, never one of its strong suits. The Nasher collection – acknowledged as the most authoritative survey of modern sculpture in private hands – would have moved the ball far downfield.
"Carter Brown became very interested in putting our collection at the National Gallery," Mr. Nasher said. "We had many, many conversations."
Meanwhile, the Nashers developed ties to London's Tate Gallery through sculptor Henry Moore, whose work they collected with fervor. And they established an enduring friendship with Swiss gallery owners Ernst and Hildy Beyeler, who had embarked on their own serious collecting career. Through the Beyelers, the Nashers met international art stars such as Miro, Chagall and Dubuffet.
Pieces are sold
Patsy Nasher died in 1988. Three years later, Mr. Nasher did something the couple had not done since they began collecting major sculptural works in the early 1960s: He sold four of the choicest pieces to the Hall Foundation of Kansas City, Mo., which loaned them permanently to that city's art museum.
That set off a fresh round of jitters in Dallas, which only intensified as an even more formidable competitor took center stage. Thomas Krens, the director who has spread the Guggenheim's modern art franchise across the globe, swept Mr. Nasher into its heady orbit.
Mr. Krens invited Mr. Nasher to help design an expanded sculpture garden at the museum's Venice outpost – renamed for the Nashers – and to exhibit works there. The Guggenheim also appointed Mr. Nasher to the building committee for its Frank Gehry-designed museum in Bilbao, Spain, which became the overnight sensation of the art world.
In contrast to the National Gallery, the Guggenheim is pre-eminently a repository for modern art, although its holdings lean more to painting than sculpture. It had the fit and it had the international reach.
"Tom Krens was very, very interested," Mr. Nasher said. "We had to think about it."
In 1996, the Guggenheim and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco organized a major exhibit of works from the Nasher collection, which traveled first to San Francisco and then to New York. Instrumental in that effort were former DMA officials Harry Parker and Steven Nash, both longtime friends and advisers to Mr. Nasher who had landed in San Francisco.
The Guggenheim even unshuttered the skylights in its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum – usually shrouded to protect the paintings – and Mr. Nasher basked in the light, which was matched by the glowing critical response.
Mr. Krens was in Europe last week and unavailable for comment. Anthony Calnek, the museum's deputy director for communications, said the Guggenheim never expected to receive a bequest as a result of the show.
The high-stakes chess games between major museums and major collectors are "subtle matters," he said. "The '97 show was an end unto itself for a museum like ours."
Dallas steps up to it
At that point, though, many observers might have bet on the Guggenheim.
However, they probably wouldn't have known about the hush-hush but intense campaign being waged in Dallas.
At the center of that campaign were not just Ms. Rose, Mr. Gates and DMA board member and longtime Nasher family friend Jeremy Halbreich, but City Manager John Ware, Assistant City Manager Mary Suhm and Mayor Ron Kirk.
They worked deliberately but with a sense of urgency.
"We were running scared or working scared, which is a smart way to work," Mr. Halbreich said.
Within a month of being named city manager in 1993, Mr. Ware paid a visit to Mr. Nasher. In that first meeting, which took place at Mr. Nasher's office, he didn't broach the subject of the collection, Mr. Ware said: "I just wanted to get to know him."
Their second meeting took place over Sunday brunch at Mr. Nasher's house. After the meal, they toured the house and garden, which were specifically designed to showcase the art.
"As we walked, I would identify each piece and tell him the artist," Mr. Ware said. "I think that might have been the linchpin of our relationship."
Mr. Nasher would have liked to leave the art in place, converting the house and garden into a museum. The first task for Mr. Ware and other Dallas officials was to persuade him, as gently as possible, that the residential setting made that impossible.
When Mr. Kirk was elected in 1995, Mr. Ware wasted no time in impressing upon him the importance of landing the Nasher collection. Unbeknownst to the City Council, they began calculating how much money the city could reasonably promise to raise to build a sculpture garden.
In concert with the museum's representatives, they also began discussing with Mr. Nasher the host of issues such a proposal entails. They talked sites, they talked architects, they talked tax implications, they talked maintenance – and they talked and talked and talked parking.
What they never discussed was the possibility that Mr. Nasher might build and pay for the center himself, rather than donating the collection to the DMA. That notion, Ms. Rose said, would have run counter to everything Mr. Nasher had been hearing for years from his bevy of suitors.
"Throughout the courtship process he heard: 'Here's what I want to do for you, if you'll give us part of your collection,' " she said.
Build-it-yourself route
The Beyelers, by contrast, had chosen the build-it-yourself route. In 1997, they opened the Beyeler Foundation Museum near Basel, Switzerland, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, whom Mr. Nasher met at the Beyeler's opening and later hired.
With the cream of the Nasher collection already in San Francisco and headed to New York, Dallas made its formal pitch.
"We had colored drawings. We made a big presentation," Ms. Rose said.
There were only two things wrong with it:
The $15.6 million, though a respectable sum, would build only a garden, not the center for scholarship and conservation that Mr. Nasher envisioned.
In common with every other museum's bid, it would mean his giving up ownership – and control – of the collection.
"It was very hard for Ray to think about turning it over to anybody else," Mr. Halbreich said.
Mr. Nasher also appeared dismayed, Ms. Rose said, by the prospect of "design by committee."
As a veteran of several Dallas projects, including NorthPark mall, Mr. Nasher knew the ways of City Hall. He had only recently won a decades-long fight over the rezoning of the Caruth homestead across from NorthPark (a victory some attributed to the council's eagerness to snag the collection).
To compound Mr. Nasher's doubts, Mr. Ware cautioned him against relying on the city to maintain the art.
"I said, 'Ray, that's not a good idea.' " Mr. Ware said. " 'If, in the next budget year, we're having budget problems, maintenance is one of the first things I'll look to cut.' "
Over and against those drawbacks was the city's ability to put together the land.
And then there was Dallas' ace in the hole: hometown pride.
"I just begged," Mr. Kirk said. "I pleaded. I knew that if we got into a bidding war, the city was not going to win. It was just a flagrant appeal to Ray's ego and sense of civic pride – which I do pretty good at."
Whatever his feelings, for once Mr. Nasher couldn't deliberate at his leisure. The city gave him a deadline. If he did not accept the deal by a certain date, the offer would be withdrawn.
About that time, the New York Times wrote a story describing the competition for the collection. In it, Mr. Nasher came off as coy – a portrayal that seemed, to some friends, to distress him.
Several observers suspect that it was Nancy Nasher who found the solution, suggesting to her father that he retain ownership of the art and fund the project himself through the Nasher Foundation.
"I just think he realized that was best to serve the art," Ms. Rose said. "It was the right thing."